Short answer: A Pennsylvania lawyer website redesign has to answer a question most rebuild briefs never raise: how many jurisdictions is this site actually advertising in? Pennsylvania borders six states, and both major markets sit on borders — Philadelphia against New Jersey and Delaware, Pittsburgh against Ohio and West Virginia. A single rebuilt site inherits the content expectations of every jurisdiction it targets, and those differ. This guide sets out how to rebuild one site that works across several states without building several sites.
The rebuild is the moment to decide which state’s rule you write to. Most firms never decide, and inherit the answer from a template.
What Pennsylvania adds to a redesign
Pennsylvania governs lawyer advertising through Rules 7.1 through 7.5 of the Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct, with the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania handling enforcement — see the Pennsylvania attorney advertising rules guide.
Pennsylvania’s own rules are broadly conventional. The complication is geography. A Philadelphia firm advertising into South Jersey is speaking to New Jersey residents, and New Jersey is the strictest state in the country on award badges. A firm marketing into New York inherits a home page labelling requirement. Ohio runs its own certification framework. Delaware, Maryland and West Virginia each have their own treatment of firm names, results and specialisation language.
A redesign is when all of that becomes concrete, because someone is deciding what the footer says, whether there is a badge row, how results are presented and what the bio template contains. Those decisions get made once and then live for years.
Write the standards note first
Before design begins, produce a single page that answers six questions and names the state each answer came from. This is the most useful document in a cross-border rebuild and almost nobody has one.
| Question | Why it differs across the border | Rebuild implication |
|---|---|---|
| How do we present awards? | New Jersey is strictest | Describe, do not display a badge row |
| How do we present results? | Treatment varies by state | Template needs room for context |
| What specialisation language? | Ohio certifies; others restrict | Fixed vocabulary for all copy |
| What labels must appear? | New York requires one | Header or footer build requirement |
| How are admissions shown? | Mixed-admission teams | Per-lawyer field in the bio template |
| What does the firm name imply? | Trade name rules differ | Settle before any rebrand |
The method is to write to the strictest position among the states you actually market into. That works commercially and not just defensively, because the strictest position is nearly always the more specific one. New Jersey’s treatment of awards pushes you toward naming the awarding body and its selection methodology, and a described award is more persuasive to a reader than an unexplained logo — in every state.
Do not solve it with geo-targeting
There are three ways to handle a multi-jurisdiction rebuild and only one of them holds up.
Serving different content by location sounds sophisticated and creates more problems than it solves. It is fragile, you lose visibility of what your own site showed a given visitor, and search engines index a version you did not choose. Avoid it in a rebuild specifically, because a redesign is when it gets introduced and it then persists invisibly.
Separate sites per state works and is expensive. It splits authority across domains, doubles the maintenance, and reliably produces a stale second site within a year. A rebuild is the moment firms are tempted into this, and it is usually the wrong call outside genuinely separate practices.
One site written to the strictest standard, with per-lawyer admissions and honest location pages, is the approach that survives. It is also cheaper to rebuild and cheaper to keep accurate.
Where the jurisdictions have to be explicit in the new build
Writing to the strictest standard handles claims. It does not answer the reader’s question of whether you can help them, and that needs specific fields in the new templates rather than prose added afterwards.
The bio template needs a per-lawyer admissions field. “Our attorneys are admitted in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware” is true of the firm and false of every individual in it, and retrofitting this after launch means editing every bio. The practice area template benefits from a short section stating which states the firm handles that matter type in — two hundred words that remove the most common reason a qualified visitor does not call. And location pages targeting a cross-border community should say which lawyers are admitted there rather than repeating the Philadelphia page with a different place name.
Pennsylvania lawyer website redesign: frequently asked questions
Does a Pennsylvania firm’s website have to follow other states’ rules?
A site that markets into another state is communicating with that state’s residents, and states take differing positions on the reach of their rules. How another jurisdiction’s rules apply to your marketing is a question for your ethics counsel; the practical rebuild answer most cross-border firms adopt is to write to the strictest standard among their target states.
Should a border firm build separate sites per state?
Rarely. Separate sites split authority, multiply maintenance and produce a stale second site. One site written to the strictest standard is cheaper to build and easier to keep accurate.
Is geo-targeted content a good idea in a rebuild?
No. It is fragile, invisible to you after deployment, and search engines index a version you did not select. A redesign is when it tends to get introduced, which is why it is worth ruling out at the brief stage.
What should the bio template include for a cross-border firm?
A field for each lawyer’s own bar admissions, specified before the template is built. Firm-level admission statements are true collectively and false individually, and adding the field later means editing every bio on the site.
How long does a Pennsylvania lawyer website redesign take?
Eight to sixteen weeks. Cross-border firms should add time at the start for the standards note, which shortens everything downstream because the copy decisions stop being reopened.
Pennsylvania lawyer website redesign: the short version
If you take one thing from this guide, take this: before the rebuild starts, write down the list of states your marketing actually reaches — including the ones your ads spill into rather than the ones you meant to target. Then write one page saying which state’s rule you follow on awards, results and specialisation. Most border firms have never written either document, and every content decision in the rebuild depends on both.
Official source: the Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania.
Legal Web Agency is a marketing agency, not a law firm, and nothing here is legal advice. Nothing here states how any state’s rules apply extraterritorially or that any particular approach complies. Confirm current requirements with the Disciplinary Board or your ethics counsel.
Related reading: Law Firm Website Redesign: Complete 2026 Guide, plus Pennsylvania law firm website content and the Pennsylvania advertising rules guide.
